


Many Wonders I Have Seen. I Have Not Seen a Wonder Like You.

by lonewytch



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Outer Space, Romance, TARDIS - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonewytch/pseuds/lonewytch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was all there, the whole of everything laid out like a map before him, a billion billion different sights and sounds, just waiting for him to materialise in his blue box, to bear close witness to the things that no one else ever would. No one else except for him, and except for the strange and wonderful woman whose life was tangled through his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Wonders I Have Seen. I Have Not Seen a Wonder Like You.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TygerTyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TygerTyger/gifts).



> This is a birthday fic for TygerTyger

 

  
There were places out there in the Universe that everybody should visit, amazing things things that everyone should see for themselves up close, because they had the power to touch the soul deeply with their beauty and majesty, or else with their fragility and transience. But they were things that not everyone could see, and that not many ever would. Some of the most beautiful were too far flung, unreachable as the oldest and most distant stars at the edges of the Universe. Some of them were too dangerous, to volatile for any living thing to witness closely.

Except for him. It was all there, the whole of everything laid out like a map before him, a billion billion different sights and sounds just waiting for him to materialise in his blue box, to bear close witness to the things that no one else ever would . No one else except for him - and except for the strange and wonderful woman whose life was tangled through his, and who sometimes journeyed with him. He revelled in this, all the the places he could take her, that fact that he could show her the things no one had ever seen, that no one ever could, that he could take her closer to some of most powerful forces in the Universe than anyone would ever get. 

They stood together hand in hand on the brink of the Tardis as she hovered at the distant looping arm of a spiral galaxy, watching as one of the most massive of stars in the Universe entered the final stages of its supernova state. Soon the gravity at its centre would cause it to collapse inwards on itself, sending out a brief ten second burst of neutrinos that would, for just that single moment in time, shine brighter than the entire galaxy of which it was a distant part. A darkened protective shell enclosed his ship, hugging around it egg like, filtering out the most dangerous of the rays and affording them a dimmed view of something that would burn out the retina of any other living thing witnessing it this closely.

Despite the darkness of the filter, the light was still bright in front of them, illuminating her face and reflecting from her eyes. He watched her watching the star, the magnificent sight secondary for the time being to the woman who stood beside him. Her curls glowed halo-like, lit up by the fiery force of the star expelling its outer layers, the black hole that was being birthed at its heart currently obscured by light and heat. She was watching intently, drinking in the sight, her skin white-gold in its light. He traced the bump of her nose, the curve of her cheeks and lips with his eyes greedily, savouring the moment, storing it up to be brought out and re-examined later when he was alone again. 

He untangled his fingers from hers, bringing them up to brush along her shoulder, questing and tangling  through her curls to stroke the soft skin at the back of her neck. She smiled a little, the corners of her lips curling up gently, but never once taking her eyes away from the sight, as if she was afraid to miss a single second of it. 

“How long?” She breathed out, so softly, he had to lean into her to catch the words before they were caught and pulled away by all the light and fire around them. 

“Any time now,” he murmured into her ear, her curls tickling across the surface of his lips like the promise of a kiss. “The centre of it is falling inwards even now, the equilibrium is broken, it can’t hold for much longer.”

Almost immediately after he had spoken, there was a sudden increase in light and heat - 

“Here it comes,” he whispered. 

He could sense her holding her breath as waves of radiation rippled outwards, the star beginning to jettison over ten percent of its mass in one final blaze of glory, before it gave way to the dragging blackness that was forming at its heart; a darkness which would eventually swallow up the rest of its mass. Such a brief time in its life, these ten seconds. Out of the whole massive span of its years, there were just these spare moments in time when it would overcome the light of the very galaxy which had given birth to it, its origins now hidden somewhere deep and long ago in the nurseries of stars that formed inside huge nebulae. The idea of this hit somewhere deep at the core of him, sweeping a dark wave of sadness through him suddenly. He and River burned so brightly right now. Across the span of all his years, she had appeared, unexpected, unasked for, flaring brightly across his life. This mad, impossible, infuriating woman with the heart of his ship burning at the core of her; she too was just a moment in time. One day she would burn bright in a last fire that would consume her, before she also went on into the dark, leaving the sky around him a little colder and emptier than before, bereft of her light. 

Yet, for now, she lived and breathed next to him, her warmth and light rippling and spreading through his life.He knew he should be watching the sight of the star in its most glorious moment, yet somehow his eyes were dragged back to her face, and he watched her instead. Rather than seeing the light of the supernova  itself, he witnessed it mirrored in her face and her eyes, that final blast of radiation illuminating her brightly and imprinting her image onto his memory. 

When the light finally began to recede and die away a little, he stepped in close to her side, burying his face into her curls. He breathed in the scent of her, all warmth and spices, so very  River,  so anchoring and grounding out here in this corner of the vast universe.

“Thank you,” he felt, more than heard her murmur, his forehead pressed to her temple.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered in her ear, placing a soft kiss against her hair. 

“Happy birthday, River Song.”

 


End file.
